Hell of a week, kids, and no mistake. This is the season when The Home Office comes out to the Sandlands and wants to be entertained, meaning that this week I have had to throw two vast parties, one of which had what was absolutely without exception the worst background-music band that ever tried to carry off a cover of "Sweet Child of Mine" (which would have been horrific enough, but was all the more so because I had very carefully gone over a sample setlist of things like Gershwin, Porter, and Berlin). The only saving grace was that (a) the Home Office execs were by that point more or less blotto and (b) the lead singer had what the immortal script of Monty Python and the Holy Grail described as Vast Tracts of Land, which very much had our lead VIP visitor in their thrall.
So, to turn to brighter thoughts, Mr. Muscato and I (that's his elbow) are running away for the weekend to see the Bahrain Boys, and I write this from the cosy confines of that most civilized of modern creations, the Airport Premium Lounge. As you can see, we're already feeling much better.
Honestly, kids, I looked and looked for something racier than this, Cherry bidding a merry adieu to an elderly gentleman who's presumably now all rested, as it were, thanks to her ministrations, but, a few standard medical-themed pinups aside, things rapidly get too racy, it turns out, when you Google things like "hot male nurses." Go ahead - see for yourself. Lose an hour or two of your life...
In any case, here's a quick update from the sick bay. We made our way to Prestigious University Hospital this morning, where for what I'm guessing is going to be something like the national debt of Latvia, I was poked and prodded with some sort of gizmo that gave off the most alarming noises (shades of The Machine That Goes "Ping!" in The Meaning of Life) - alternately clacking and gurgling and whirring - thereby allowing the technician (a very well set up gentleman called Clint - if only he were slathering me with chilly gel for better reasons!) to look around inside.
Then it was a nice cozy wait for our long-awaited opportunity to See the Doctor.
Which we did. The cardiologist turns out to be a lovely matronly Indian lady ("Oh! I have ma-any cousins who live there!" she exclaimed when she learned of our Sandlandian home, and I'm sure she does), who passed on news good - nothing showing up in the tests yet - and not so. Not so, at this point, only because that means more, and apparently moderately less pleasant, tests.
Which means not traveling yet, which is a great bore. Too much longer in borrowed rooms and we'll start to feel like refugees, not least because one of our last acts before first hitting the ER was shipping home the vast majority of our stuff, from souvenirs to extra underpants, and so here we sit with travel clothes and not much more. Whinge, whinge, whinge, I know, especially when the bottom line, at the moment at least, is that it appears there's nothing about to blow imminently, which means we can at least go out and do something amusing (the appeal of American TV has definitely waned over the past four days of doing nothing at all).
At least in the evenings. On top of everything else, you see, it's now become Ramadan, so Mr. Muscato is fasting and therefore rather nocturnal. Aside from not drinking and Avoiding Undue Excitement (both doctor's orders), I'm sure we'll have a blast...
Two birthdays come to mind, with no real relation between them except that funny way that odd allusions can fire random synapses.
First up, beloved UK canary Clodagh Rodgers, a performer whose moment in the spotlight as fourth-place finisher in the 1971 Eurovision Song Contest was forever overshadowed by the taking in vain of her name in one of the greatest of all Monty Python pieces, the extended "Cycling Tour" episode. I know it's hard to imagine if you haven't seen it, but "Ce n'est pas la belle Clodagh ... c'est Trotsky, le revolutionaire!" is one of the towering comedy moments of all time.
Here she is, though, at her moment of triumph, in all her be-hotpanted splendour, belting out her biggest hit; sadly, it's a song so idiotic that even here, when it was new and shiny and fun, even Clodagh doesn't look like she's having a very good time.
Also celebrating today, albeit in a completely Different Part of the Forest, is American broadcaster and writer Ray Suarez. His name, to me, will always conjure up a very specific time, one when his smooth, reasonable voice was, although I didn't know it then, something of an anchor for me.
In the early nineties, I was just coming off a spectacular, demanding, and really rather impossible job, one that had taken me around the world, allowed me to meet many of the people I most admired, and, when I left it, left me exhausted, adrift, and a little bit miserable. I was living in New York, I had contacts and friends and all sorts of potential opportunities, and I didn't want to do anything.
Which was a problem, since like most New Yorkers working in the arts, I was also quite thoroughly broke. Knew everyone, went everywhere, of course, but had a standing balance in the high two-figures down at the Chase Manhattan.
Fortunately, a friend came to my rescue; she needed someone to clean up tens of thousands of data records for a project on which she was engaged and decided I would do. Although I was a complete computer novice, she taught me the database program (Paradox in its pure DOS form, for those who care) and set me loose.
For the better part of a year I spent at least part of most days sitting in a tiny, windowless office off Times Square, completely alone, correcting spelling, making formatting consistent, and generally learning how data works (which is actually a lot more interesting than it sounds. Or at least I think so). At a time when I needed it, this seeming drudgery provided refuge, structure, and consistency. I would walk up from the Village, let myself in, turn on the radio, and sit down and try to figure out how to standardize international phone-number fields.
NPR was the background noise, and "Talk of the Nation" often the show; even today I can hear Ray Suarez's calm, reassuringly sensible voice. It brings back exactly that empty little room, the endless packets of Nabisco Vanilla Cremes I went through, the clanking sounds of pipes in the ancient, faded building.
Looking back, I suppose I was probably pretty depressed, and the undemanding routine of Paradox and radio just about the best therapy I could have had. As the project was ending, my friend - surprised, I think, that it had gone so well - asked me if I would teach other people, her clients, how to work with the product she was developing. Talk to people? It was a big step, but I gave it a shot, and it worked, and from there has turned into all sorts of other lines of work.
So here I sit today, on a nearly perfect morning on the far side of the world, with Mr. Muscato asleep upstairs, Koko curled up on the sofa, and the birds singing in the garden, and think gratefully of Ray Suarez, 53 today.
Were I a real writer, I'd probably try to find a way to link it all together - some kind of a pop-music epiphany/jack in the box/time in its flight kind of mashup, but instead all I can think of is Graham Chapman dressed as a French girl, shrieking "Oh, Maman! Ce n'est pas..." and so dissolve in giggles. Koko really must think me very odd.
When I was a little boy in a very boring town, my beloved older sister turned me on to an incredible window into another world: Monty Python's Flying Circus.
Carol is Mrs. Atilla the Hun
Mrs. Premise and Mrs. Conclusion; The Larch; "Cuidade, cuidade, cuidade - los llamas!" But most of all - even more than the glory that was Terry Jones in drag or Graham Chapman on a tear - I adored Carol Cleveland.
She had the deadpan, not-quite-in-on-the-joke affect of Margart Dumont, plus a very specific early-70s glamor that was a nice offset for the Python boys, whether she was playing a bride in search of a bed or a girlfriend attacked by Deidre, a terrifying hag who "smells a bit, but has a heart of gold."
Sadly, though, I didn't grow up to be a kicky Brit TV blonde. In fact, I suppose, I'm great deal more like a far more recent crush: the extraordinary Mrs. Bubbles DeVere.
While shopping last weekend at a vast outlet clearance scale, I heard a peal of Mr. Muscatoish laughter two rows over. I trotted over to find him propped against some shelves, heaving with giggles, holding up a terrycloth wrap with a velcro close. "I thought," he gasped, "They made these up for Bubbles!"
Fortunately, I was able to convince him not to buy it. But really, it looked very comfortable...
